+ About
“Molten glass is my chosen material. I can feel the honey-like texture by blowing into and sculpting it. It is the intimate sensory connection with the material that fascinates me endlessly.”
In her final year of her glass art training at Canberra School of Art, Australian National University, Akie Haga started focusing on flameworking glass, creating works that are extremely intricate and delicate. Since graduating in 2004, Akie has continued to explore and expand her flameworking practice.
Akie was born in Japan, a country with a strong culture and aesthetic. In her early 20s she left Japan, travelling extensively until finally settling in Australia. Through her discovery of different cultures, languages, and colours in city and nature, she has been developing her visual language and continues to do so. Her Japaneseness is still at the core of her creative process in valuing fine craftsmanship and attention to detail. Akie perceives her visual language as the fruit of the cross pollination of the first and second chapters of her life.
Wearables
In recent years, she has been focusing on creating small scale work and one-of-a-kind wearable art. Her work embraces the elemental, liquid nature of glass - manifesting as organic, colourful and transparent forms. With her sculptural wearables, Akie highlights the unexpected side of the material of what glass can do and be, creating portable and accessible art for a wider audience.
During a recent interview, Akie confided that she has many drawers full of an ever growing number of small glass components accumulated over the years of exploring the material. They are puzzle pieces for her and her works are born of a continual arrangement of these pieces. It’s not unusual to spend a day or more doing this assembling process to make one work, only to take the finished work apart to start all over again.
